NYTimes Fixes on the Opinionator
This NYTimes piece surveys One Acre Fund’s efforts to facilitate the Green Revolution in Africa. The article mentions the promising findings and opportunities to scale harvest time loans, evaluated by ATAI researchers Marshall Burke et al. (see the project “Innovative Finance and Grain Storage among Farmers and Traders in Kenya“)
“(….)Another problem farmers face is selling low and buying high. When farmers are strapped for cash, they often have to sell their crops immediately after harvest, when prices are lowest, and buy food later in the year when prices have risen. Marshall Burke, from Stanford, is experimenting with assistance from the One Acre Fund to establish whether well-timed microloans can help smallholder farmers increase profits by letting them sell at more favorable times. During the first year, the loans produced a 20 percent return on investment, said Burke, and preliminary second-year results appear even more promising. If this project proves profitable for farmers, One Acre Fund is in a position to rapidly scale it up.”
